Telephone Marketing has a full range of options from completely manual to completely automated. Modern day smart phones can receive multiple forms of communication including texts, emails, GPS directions and anything on the web with internet access. For a full description of mobile phone marketing, read the Mobile Phone Marketing page. To explore what kind of marketing can done with phone calls, stay on the line (or keep reading). One thing to keep in mind with telephone marketing is that it is “interruption” marketing. This is a major hurdle to overcome when choosing this marketing stream. Yet, telephone marketing can be effective in narrowing down a large group of people into a group of targeted individuals.
Completely Manual (Personal Calls, “Cold Calling”)
Completely manual phone calls take a lot of time. Yet, the recipient may be more likely to listen when a human being is actually calling and not a machine. (Unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll buy). For sales people, this type of marketing is called “cold calling”. They may start with a list of prospective customers and clients. Yet the people on the list are not expecting the call. For the guerrilla marketer, low-budget marketer or DIY marketer this is the cheapest form of telephone marketing since you don’t have to pay for a system of automation.
Completely Automated Telephone Marketing
In this form of telephone marketing a machine makes the calls, a machine delivers a pre-recorded message and a machine receives any input or data given by the recipient of the call. It is “interruption marketing” at it’s worst and as a result there is a national “do not call” list. However, depending on the marketing goal or marketing strategy, it can still be the appropriate tool for marketing. One reason is because there is a national “do not call” list, that means that any numbers on any databases of phone numbers used in marketing are more likely to be the numbers for people who have somehow opted in to receiving the call. This makes them more likely to listen to the message. Of course these databases are not 100% accurate. They have numbers of people who actually didn’t mean to opt in or they have fake numbers. The good news is, a human doesn’t waste their time on that number. That leads to a second reason why this can be a good tool – it’s completely automated which saves a lot of time and resources. This leads to a third reason – it acts as a filter. Assume you call 100 people and only 1 lead is generated. That’s a sumo-targeted lead and a machine did the work of finding that 1 out of 100.
Mixed Machine-Human Interaction (Telemarketing)
The rest of the range of telephone marketing lies in-between the two extremes described above. An automated machine may dial the number, but a human representative may respond when the recipient picks up the phone. This is the most common system for telemarketing. The representative may even then ask the recipient if they’d be willing to listen to a pre-recorded message or they’ll do the pitch entirely. Or a machine will dial the number and deliver a pre-recorded message and when the recipient responds positively they’ll be routed to a human who can speak to them. A mixed hybrid telephone marketing is selected when the advertiser wants to get both the time-saving benefits of automation and the sincere, genuine feeling that can only be represented by an actual human voice.
Fax Marketing
Prior to the many modern advances of technology, faxing was a major staple in business operations and there is such a thing as fax marketing campaigns. In fact, there are even laws on faxing similar to anti-spam laws for email and the national “do not call” list for phone calls. Since faxing is a method of communication, one might ask if it can be used for marketing purposes. The answer is maybe, but probably not. The “maybe” is to always keep an open-minded attitude. The “probably not” is due to the decline in the use of faxing in favor of other forms of communication.
Other Uses for Phone Systems in Business
There are least two other uses for phone systems in business besides marketing. One is customer service. If 90% of customers call with the exact same question that requires the exact same answer, then that particular issue can be addressed with automation. Then the other 10% can speak to a customer service representative and that increases production with less resources. The other use is only one step away from marketing, and that’s research. In fact, it usually dictates the course of marketing. If the recipient of the phone call receives an automated call, they may be more likely to respond if they understand that the purpose of the call is not to sell them something. The reason they’re more likely to respond is because there are many consumers who like to voice their opinion. This provides data for marketing and other business operations.
Mirex Marketing is your Telephone Marketing Solution
Mirex Marketing strives to offer complete marketing solutions for any business with any budget. If your business needs telephone marketing then Mirex Marketing can assist you in the development and implementation of your telephone marketing campaign.
Call (480) 744-5919 or use the form below to set up a free consultation:
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